Libyan Marshal meets with Russian Defense Minister

Thursday, November 8, 2018 9:00:27 AM

On Wednesday, November 7, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu met the commander of the Libyan National Army Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the ministry building in Moscow, reported Ria Novosti with reference to the Defense Ministry.

The ministry reported that Lavrov and Haftar discussed security issues in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as problems related to the fight against terrorism and the reconciliation of the crisis in Libya.

In October, The Sun reported that “a few dozen” soldiers of the special forces and employees of the General Directorate General Staff (formerly GRU) were transferred to Libya. In addition, as reported by the newspaper, Russia supplies heavy weapons to Haftar and has created two bases in the cities of Tobruk and Benghazi.

Later, sources of the RBC news agency, close to the Ministry of Defense and Libyan authorities, confirmed the presence of Russian military in Libya. The truthfulness of the news report in The Sun was denied by the Russian Embassy in Libya.

The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry said that this kind of reports are viewed as “a new attempt to place the responsibility for the destroyed country and the ruined lives of millions of Libyans on Russia.”